Desolator Guide
Introduction This guide was originally written by Dirich for patch 0.81. Currently up to date with 0.82. Gear optimized via the Best-in-Slot Bot (BiS Bot) is shown via inserting the BiS Bot result. Note though that, albeit the bot is pretty accurate, it has not been completely updated for 0.81 and there might be some inefficiencies (but I tested multiple options and it seems it got the actual best for my enchant range). Class Overview The desolator class is currently one of the strongest, if not the strongest, T2 class. Or so at least is the common opinion. This class is fairly simple compared to some others, but it has many different variables to optimise. In fact, in order to maximize profits it needs to: # Collect Void Essences and Autoclicks (if you really want to be optimal). # Accumulate 5 different spells (the most out of all the classes). # Maximize pet level (for just one pet). # Maximize current Liquid Shadow. # Maximize Liquid Shadow spent. Moreover it relies on all Attributes, albeit two of them only for optimal gear prerequisites and for perks, as the points do not provide any (usable) bonus. A unique trait of the class is that, when out of Idle Mode, it receives the Offline Bonus, which is extremely higher than the Idle Bonus all other classes make use of. As such, the burst is performed outside of Idle Mode. Run Overview If you have Insight 150, you start with a phase as : the Void Essence Collection phase. Otherwise you can skip directly to . Even if you completely skipped , there are still some preparations to do before starting the real run. # You are probably using by the time you switch to , so just keep the pet and jump to Liquid Shadow generation for a couple of minutes. Refer to the homonymous phase (remember to not change the pet this one time). # Switch to Accumulation Spell Stacking phase for a couple of minutes, while still keeping . # Do a short Burst phase while still using your loyal . # Perform a proper Source Recovery phase to maximize your source thanks to . Once you have done all this, preparations are complete and the real run begins! Just follow the phases in the order they are presented in this guide. Attribute Points Distribution Assign points following this list, until you have no more points. In general, remember that no matter how strong an attribute is, an additional perk and 25 points in a less optimal attribute is usually better than 25 points in a more optimal attribute. This is the case for Empathy versus Wisdom, Patience and Insight, and the reason why we maximise it for last. # Intelligence 150 (for ). # Mastery 200 (you need to have worked on your achievements though! It should be around 1e3% profits). # Spellcraft 200. # Intelligence 200. # Empathy 125 (or wathever you need to reach 200 when you equip ). # Patience 50 (or whatever you need to equip and ). # If you have less than 200 points left or if you plan a very short run (less than a day), dump in Dominance to get perks and dump in Empathy the leftover, otherwise ignore this point and go to the next. # Dominance 200 (the only evocation we use for bursting also scales with autoclick profits!). # From now on we are targeting specific attribute values (for perks or item requirements), as the bonus we get from the simple Attribute increase is minimal or exactly null (except for Empathy). As such, if you can not obtain a perk at the start of the run (or foresee obtaining it during the run), you should 'dump' all the remaining 1 to 24 points in 'Empathy.'' # If you have less than 150 point, get Insight 50 (necessary to equip , which is part of the burst set). If you have 150 or more points, skip to step 11 and ignore this point completely). # Wisdom 150 perk. # Wisdom 200 perk (we use 5 incantation to burst!). # Insight 50 (necessary to equip , which is part of the burst set). # Empathy 200 (necessary to equip and ). # Inisight 200 perk if you can, otherwise Patience 150 perk. # Patience 150 perk (which means you got Inisight 200 perk at step 14). Insight 200 (which buffs ) is better than Patience 150, but Patience 150 is better than Inisight 150 (which is the what we do the Void Essence Collection Phase for). Outside of these 3 perks and the Patience 75 perk (which is not better than dumping in Empathy), everything we spend in Insight and Patience give absolutely no gain. Wisdom is mainly used for its perks at 150 and 200, but it is useful to help generate Spell Shards in certain niche circumstances .Still, if you can't get the perks dumping in Empathy leads to better profits. Note: I've tested many Attribute Points configurations with my character at e500 mysts in 0.81. So they were correct, at least for that myst range. I keep the list up to date with patches, but I can not test all myst ranges so your mileage might vary, but not too much.. '' Run Length Tips All the following tips are ''independent from the myst range, as they are all only influenced by time (gear helps get better results, but saturation/diminishing returns kick in after the same time in the same way). Initial Setup: this covers the preparations for the run previously described (so up to the first mini burst and the following maximization of sources), excluding the Void Essence Collection phase. If you know what you need to do and you have the key items to speed up , this should take you 5 minutes. Probably around 20-30 if you are missing said key items (refer to the Source Maximization phase for more info). Accumulation Spell Stacking phase: for a medium-long run you should stack 1e6 accumulated casts (for the Spell Shard based spells) and spend around 4e9 Liquid Shadow (if you have this will automatically be guaranteed by virtue of casting it for accumulation purposes). A short run is one where you will not reach 4.5e5 casts (how long this takes depends on the gear you have and its quality), since under this value is weaker than (read the relevant paragraph for info on how this affects the run). Liquid Shadow Generation phase: you use the , which gets experience right after its ability ends and its charging phase starts. It is suggested you leave it levelling until you only get 1 level out of a charge cycle, which, for me, usually takes 4-5 cycles . As far as how long this phase should last, if your run lasts half a day or longer you should give it at least 20 minutes (after the levelling) to max your Liquid Shadow. I usually don't go over 40 minutes. Pre Burst phase: I perosnally find 15-20 minutes to be a good compromise for levelling . You probably won't get much from going over 40 minutes. What if you have not yet acccess to Void Fission? The spell is unlocked by paying a cost of 1e750, when bought it replaces . The main differences between the two spells are that the former is an accumulated spells while the latter is not, and that the former is fueled by Liquid Shadows, while the latter by Spell Shards. If you have not yet reached the necessary mana production to unlock , every time this spell is mentioned in this guide you should replace it with something else (accumulated spells, Autoclick spells, whatever is appropriate for the phase you are in), but not with . Unless you are in Burst phase. Because every time you cast outside of Burst phase it's just because of stacking, and you can't stack casts with . Stacking automatically provides you with enough Liquid Shadow expenditure that you can completely skip the Liquid Shadow Spending phase. On the other hand, since is a Spell Shard based spell, you will need to handle Liquid Shadow expenditure directly. It is quite easy to understand that since you can remove a phase altogether and get a new accumulated spell (which also happens to be the one with the best scaling, and not by a little margin), reaching results in a massive increase in power for . Denaturation A unique point of is that it burst with 5 accumulated incantations. If you plan a short run, though, you might not be able to reach the 4.5e5 casts threshold necessary for to become better than (note that the number of casts might be different from character to character). In such case you can avoid stacking , substituting it with what you might need more (shadow spending, autoclicks, mana generation helper, etc). Autoclicks Autoclicks increase character level, but their main purpose is to allow us to buy Autoclick related upgrades, since scales with Autoclick profit (the highest prerequisite is currently 4.5e4 autoclicks, which is quite easy to reach). This is why, when there's nothing else useful to do, we use summoning spells as fillers. Alchemist Spell Source Issues The spells inherited from the class consume sources when casted, which means you need to buy them back or you will end up consuming all the ones you have and being unable to cast again. The canonical way to solve the issue is to use the spells and , but if you have bought VIP5 from the Market, then you can use the Source Autobuy feature to save yourself two spell slots. Void Essence Collection Phase Inisight 150 Pet: '' . ''Elixir: Irrelevant. Optional Phase: '''This phase is useful only if you have Insight 150. It is a required phase if you do, and must be skipped as it is a waste of time if you do not (experience wise Void Essences stacks with Liquid Shadow, and the latter is obtained way more easily than the former) and you should skip to the next. Note: you have no access to as Void Essences are replaced by Liquid Shadow, hence you can't come back to this phase after you switch class. Equipment ''- Dust Gathering Set: ''Spell bar with VIP5: Spell bar without VIP5: You can perform an early burst just to gather some Upgrades, but as long as spawns Void Esssences fast enough, you don't care for anything else. It's optimal to work on both Autoclicks and Void Essences, which fills most of our spell bar. The only other relevant things we can do is optimize dust gathering, which is why we use , and accumulate a bit and (which, incidentally, will also cause your pet to be unable to fully saturate your sources, but it does not matter as we are using it just for the dust bonus in this phase). Do not worry if you don't have some of the items, gear is mostly irrelevant in this phase. On the other hand, if you find you can not sustain with all the incantation duration decreasing items listed, you might remove some of them. You might also add incantation efficiency gear in the unlikely case that your is not strong enough. Similar to the gear, the Elixir is not particularly relevant in this phase. None of them provide any benefit to what we are trying to achieve in this phase. Unless you didn't level a pet to 136 to get to collect Void Essences every second, in which case the summoner elixir might help? I am unsure at which mysts it might be difficult to level to 136. If you decide to use an autoclicker to help with Void Essence collection, then it is useful to equip gear that improves incantation efficiency. How many Void Essences to farm? However many you want. I personally won't spend more than 12 hours in this phase, and even then only if I'm planning a very long run. At the end of this phase you can switch to . 3 in 1 Phase (Accumulation, Max Pet, Liquid Shadow Spending) Pet: '' ( if you do not have ). ''Elixir: Pet. Note: This is the main phase of the run, you will spend 95% or more of your time in this phase. Probably more like 85% if you need to perform the Liquid Shadow Spending phase independently because you don't have access to ). Equipment - Levelling and Stacking Set, Variant 1:' Equipment - Stacking and Levelling Set, Variant 2: Spell bar with VIP5: ''Spell bar without VIP5: The purpose of this phase is to level a pet to the highest level possible (because it buffs Pet Elixir) as well as maximize the casts on the accumulated spells. If you have access to , you will also spend huge amount of Liquid Shadows, which will allow you to skip the next phase. Thanks to our is capable of generating Spell Shards way more often than , and since after reaching a high enough level both of these pets can completely fill all the charges of our spells, the former is the stronger pet. Throught all this phase you should equip the Levelling and Stacking Set, Variant 1. Once pet level does not increase anymore in a reasonable time frame (an hour or so if your runs last multiple days) you can swap to the Levelling and Stacking Set, Variant 2. If you do not have you should swap pet to when you swap to the Levelling and Stacking Set, Variant 2. Note that the pets used in this phase level up based on amount of Spell Shard spent casting spells, which means Shadow Spells do not help levelling, while is the best spell for the purpose (evocations generate the most casts, and this one has the largest Spell Shard cost by far). If you do not have VIP5 you will need to switch the accumulation spells on the bar in order to stack them all, remembering to favor those that scale better. Prioritization should follow this list (mainly ordered from best to worst scaling): # # # # # scales worse than but it is more useful as it is not only used in Burst Phase, but also greatly boost Liquid Shadow generation, which is why it must be prioritized over it. Liquid Shadow Spending Phase Mana Lower Than 1e750 Pet: '' . ''Elixir: Pet. Optional Phase: 'This phase is needed only if you do not have access to ' , as by accumulating casts on that spell you will naturally spend huge quantities of Liquid Shadows, so it becomes suboptimal to perform this phase and you should skip to the next.' ''Note: Liquid Shadow is spent by casting spells Shadow Spell, as opposed to the usual Spell Shard fueled spells. Equipment ''- Dust Gathering Set: ''Spell bar for VIP5: Spell bar without VIP5: The Liquid Shadow cost of spells is extremely low compared to how much Liquid Shadow you should have generated during the run setup described in the Introduction, which is why we are able to do this phase before the real Liquid Shadow Generation phase. The reason why we want to is that in this phase we keep improving the evocation efficiency bonus of , which is one of the buffs used to maximize Liquid Shadow generation. Pet and Elixir are irrelevant in this phase, as such we use because more dust is always good. Equipment is mostly irrelevant, as nothing helps Liquid Shadow expenditure excepts for having more spell charges, which is why is part of the Dust Gathering Set. Since we are stacking the most powerful spells available, it is a reasonable choice to substitute with , but since we have already done a lot of stacking in the previous phase, helping a bit enchanting dust generation might help not slow down later on, as low enchant levels have been my only problem. Liquid Shadow Generation Phase At lower mysts dust generation might be low enough for '' or to give better results than , even though Character Ability Power is better than Pet Ability Power, which is better than Evocation Efficiency.'' Sources Recovery Phase Pet: '' . ''Elixir: Irrelevant. Equipment - Dust Gathering: Spell bar: Nothing really matters in this phase, as we are simply waiting for to max the sources, since profits come from all of them. This phase should be very fast thanks to having already maxed all sources during the run setup. Pre Burst Phases Pet: '' . ''Elixir: Irrelevant. Equipment - Levelling and Stacking Set, Variant 3: Spell bar: This phase purpose is simply to level in order to maximize profits during the Burst phase. Make sure to never enter Idle Mode (possibly use an autoclicker), as in such condition this pet experience gains are multiplied by 5! Burst Phase At lower mysts dust generation might be low enough for '' or to give better results than , even though Character Ability Power is better than Pet Ability Power, which is better than Evocation Efficiency.'' The BiS Bot does not know about attribute requirement on items, so if you do not have Insight 50, you must replace the '' . What to use depends on what level of enchant you can reach. Remember that Offline gives the highest (percentage) bonus, so long term it's the one that should win. My testing shows that at around enchant level 10 should match (I couldn't test more than level 8 given my current dusts). First of all check that you are indeed ready: # Equip the gear and spell bar for burst (you can find them at the end of this paragraph). # Check that is charged (cast if it is not). # Ensure all your spells are at maximum charges. You are now ready to burst! '''The burst can sustain itself indefinitely, but it is quite active.' You can set all your spells to reckless cast and enjoy the profits, but remember to: # Keep out of idle mode (so that we get the offline bonus, which is much better than the idle bonus). # Keep active ability going (cast it again when it is about to expire). # Buy again the sources used by and (via VIP 5, autoclicker or manually). Keep buying all upgrades that become available (with the 'b' key) and keep the burst running until you see little additional profit. At this point you can either exile or, if the run was a long one and you got some Evocation Efficiency upgrades whille bursting, go back to the Liquid Shadow Generation phase and then burst again.Category:Guide